Aquanaut's Holiday
Summer of 1996
FAQ
By Jeezus, my email is at the bottom.
This is more like a in-depth explanation about this game but anyways, there it goes:
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INTRO
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If you're reading this then I assume that you possess the game, have played at least 2 hours
of it and have serious doubts about the game, well, I have played about 20 hours of it and
I still have such doubts. Anyways, I felt like writing this because I think I've figured
out a lot of this game and I went hippie and I feel like sharing it.
Many people might argue about this game, they might argue if this actually is a game, that's
a good thing, it shows how interesting it is. But anyways, if this is a game, the only label
I would place on it is that it is a real life simulator, that is, it is a simulator that
copies real enviroments and the idea of such simulator is to explore this enviroments and
see what's with it, and really, this is what Sony talks about the game on their site,
that it's an exploration quest.
That's the game, you are in a piece of some ocean and you possess a submarine-like
transportation device and what you do is explore the uncharted territory so go ahead. And
there comes a question, what's there to explore??? Well, there are hundreds of different
types of fishes and other animals and there are corals and reefs. One of the highlights of
the game is some constructions that are in the sea, that is, sunken shipwrecks, a ghost
pirate ship, a face, among others that I'll list here.
Another part of this game is the Reef building "sub-game", the idea of this is to build an
artificial reef using colored blocks and to attract as many fish as possible to it, I'll get
to it a little later.
That's basically the game, there's a map like thing when you're at the Port and the map
appears as you go exploring.
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EXPLORING
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To explore in this game is to find out things, to discover the reactions of the animals by
sending sounds ( the indez fingers buttons, R1, L1, etc. ) and to uncover the map as much as
possible, finding out reefs and treasures like the sunken cities. As more as you and I would
like, you CANNOT grab the fishes, grab the reefs or anything like this at all, I know how
unbelievable cool it would be to catch a "sample" from the sea and research it at the port,
but there's no such thing in the game, maybe in the next one, who knows?
One of the resources that you possess while exploring is the ability to leave Buoys ( press
select and start to drop it ) at wherever you desire. Those are like markers and when you
are back at the port ( press select twice and start to return ) you can see the map and the
Buoys that you dropped. Once you are at the map and it shows you the buoys that you have
dropped, you can Jump to the place where the buoy is ( put the map marker on the buoys,
press X twice and there are the options to jump to the buoys or remove the buoy's existence)
this way you go instantaneously to the place you marked. This is good because you can mark
discoveries like the face or the bubble inside bubble thing ( I see it as a cocoon actually
- ALIENS!!! - damn, I'm becoming a subgenii freak ) and just jump to it from the map, once
the maps gets too big and you have too many buoys and you can't locate anything on the mess,
the map allows you to change color of the buoys that you desire, this way you organize
things better ( to change the colors, you press X once on the buoy you desire and press
R1 or L2, remember that once the buoy is red, meaning that it is the last buoy you dropped,
you won't see the color changed ).
Basically, this is exploring, I will not put the controls of the game here because you can
easily figure it out by yourself and I might be missing something, if so, remind me so and
I'll put it here.
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DISCOVERIES
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This is the list of things that I found, I think that the map doesn't vary from game play
( I hope not ) so I'll put some approximated positions relative to things that you can
easily find.
=>Killer Fish - a REALLY big animal that looks like an immense whale with a huge mouth
with big teeths. Located at the FAR bottom right corner of the map.
=>Labyrinth Structure - it's a gray coloured labyrinth, has some weird symbols in it's
walls. Can't actually give a good direction.
=>Wall of China - neat discovery, it's a miniature of the wall of China and it looks
terrific in my opinion. Located at the middle distance between the far bottom right to the
Port.
=>Face - it's a Buddha like face, mysterious like the faces at Mars. Located south of the
Artificial Reef, deep in a canyon.
=>Greek Ruins - Atlantean ruins I suppose. Located at the far bottom left side of the map.
=>Bubble within Bubble - it's like a cell, very beautiful. Can't give location.
=>Bridge - it's a very large bridge like construction. Can't give location.
=>Pirate Ship - it's a pirate ship that just floats there, it's the only shipwreck I've
found, but I remember there's another one. To the right side of the Port, near the red
coloured depressions saw on the map.
=>Human Footsteps - at the beach, bottom left part of the map, you can find human footsteps,
they don't have exact locations, just keep going around the beach and you'll see many of the.
I might be missing some, certainly, but those are what I found, if you saw different ones
tell me.
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REEF CONSTRUCTION
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This is one of my preferred part of the game, as I previously explained, the idea is to
attract as many types of fish as possible ( 120 the manual say, right? ) by placing the
blocks.
To tell you the truth, such things already exist and are considered high technology fields
of research, if you have a degree on marine biology, I seriously suggest you to look for
work at these experiments, they really are developing fast and there's no competition, like
there is in medicine school or law school. Think about it.
Anyways, the game is simple, put the blocks there and fish come for it, different sets and
patterns attract different groups or kinds of fishes. To know if it attracts fish or not,
all you do is place the thing there and don't move the controller from a little bit and the
fish will start to appear and if they stop and stick around the blocks, that means you got
it right.
You'll have more blocks to put as more of the map you chart. Got it? The more you explore,
the more you'll be able to build.
My hints to get this done are:
=>Build things and be as more diverse as possible, that is, build things like: red, blue,
yellow, red, red, yellow, blue, blue, etc. instead of building a huge line of red only.
Don't be specific, diverse as much as possible.
=>Build around the area you possess to build, that is, make a circle around the space
you possess to build.
=>Make a wide bed of blocks following no pattern. Making high structures doesn't lure that
much fish but you can make a nice tunnel for you to go thru if that's what you want.
=>To get as much as blocks to build as possible, do it like this: go to a place where
there's little that you have charted on the map, speed up your sub as fast as possible and
put the controller aside, the computer will guide you around randomly so all you gotta do
is turn off your TV and come back a hour, then you'll have uncharted a LOT of the map. Of
course, this way you won't know if you discovered anything but it's a price to pay.
You'll realize that the more fish you lure, the gauge at the bottom of the screen keeps
going up and when it's complete, you "ended" the game. Yep, you did. The screen will go
blank, another screen will pop up with a lot of japanese texts popping up, I don't know
jap so I couldn't read a thing ( if anyone has the english version, contact me urgently!!!!)
but that's pretty much it. Then you'll see the credits of the game and a FMV of your sub
will come up and the logo of the game will appear and you'll be back at the port.
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SPECIALS
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Once you ended the Reef Construction thing, Save your game and Quit the game. At the main
screen a new option will be there, it's called Present. That's what you get by being such
a good biological engineer.
It's a Fish Swimming game, you'll be able to see most of the fish of the game and will be
able to swim with them. It's pretty useful to see the discoveries because the fish swim
really fast.
You'll also see a beaver and an ET, I didn't see them on the game itself. What can I say?
Amazing game indeed.
I don't know if there are any specials, maybe charting the entire map but that's
wwwwwaaaaayyyyy too much stuff.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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First, the disclaimer:
This document is mine, that is, it's my creation so I possess it's copyrights which
means that I dictate on what it will be used at so listen carefully: if it's for domestical
use, I don't care, you can print it, make a movie of it or use it as toilet paper. THIS
DOCUMENT SHOULD NOT BE PRINTED WITH THE DIRECT OBJECTIVE OF SELLING IT. If it is to be
printed and distributed, then first of all, don't charge any money by it, second of all,
please contact me, I won't try to stop you, just want to know what this will be used for.
The copyrights:
This document's copyright belongs to Jeezus (rufus_ki@hotmail.com). Aquanaut's Holiday:
Memories of summer 1996 is Sony's copyright. Playstation is Sony's copyright. Sony is
someone's trademark.
Now, my thankz:
First, I would like to thank momma Eris, all hail Eris all hail discrodja. Anyone who
makes FAQs out there, you know who you are. Much gratitude go specially to Kao Megura, damn,
first time I played FF7 it was in japanese and your FAQ just saved me. And GameFAQs,
amazing work!! At last but not least, to my mother and father for having wild Sex and
giving birth to me, the possibility of it being a mistake is high but who cares?
Comments, complaints, love notes, dedicatory, money, sexual fantasies, NO SPAM!!!, blah
blah blah... send them to:
rufus_ki@hotmail.com